So my roommate and her BF played my BSD Saturday night while I was away. Sunday I went to fire it up and noticed it didn't do the little sequence of the ramp raising and the ball getting fired up, etc. I also noticed there was already a ball in the shooter lane that seemed to have been abandoned the night before. Sure enough I went to start a game and the ball launch would not work. I ran a coil test and coils 1-8 (high voltage) will not fire. I pull fuse 105 and test it, it's fine. Just to be safe I throw another fuse in and fire it up same deal.

When I power up I get the upper ramp up error. I also notice the coffin plunger gives a little grumbling sound when it engages. I can't tell if these are part of the problem or a result of the HV line being down.

Anyhoo, any suggestions? What aside form the fuse would cause the whole line to go down?

When I first power on the machine all the lights 1-7 are on, including led 3 high/low line voltage sensor which is typically off. When I press the start button it goes out.

thedefog, the dmd is fine. Just LED 3 on the driver board goes out when I hit start - according to the manual it should be out. I was just a little perplexed as it is lit upon powering and goes out when the start button is depressed. The ramps are the moveable ones (upper right and the entry ramp) and are powered by the HV coils

cody_chunn In the report, I get a bad drop target switch, left outline switch, magnet left switch, magnet right switch and bad upper right ramp up (I believe this is because right ramp down is part of the HV line)

HV Coils Are:
Shooter
Coffin Popper
Castle Popper
Right Ramp Down
Crypt Popper
Wire Ramp Ball Popper
Knocker
Shooting Ramp Entry

Thanks for all of the input guys.

I pulled Fuse 112 and it tested fine. For DC volts I am getting around 73V and the resistance seems to be ok. I checked BR3 and that tested fine as well.

Am I wrong to assume that the signal is being dropped? Clearly there is power, they're just not getting the signal to fire.

Any thoughts or should I just send my driver out to be looked at/rebuilt?

Yeah sorry the statement above was ambiguous on the coils for DC volts I am getting 73 volts with normal resistance.

I finally had some time and sent the driver board off to get repaired. It came back, I fired up the machine and all was well for a day....I was trying to sort out a few switch errors and was playing around with it when I noticed the plunger misfiring and sticking in the "launch" position. At that point the launch button would not work and the HV line seemed dead again. I walked away to kick some puppies and when I came back and turned the machine on again all was working as it should be.

I still don't know what caused the initial failure two months ago-it just seemed to be cleared up by some reflows, but that could just be a coincidence. Maybe the two are not related. The only thought I have at this point is maybe a short in the launch button/plunger assembly. It's clearly an intermittent problem, but I can't figure out the trigger.

I didn't want to post until I could log some hours on it and make sure the HV coil line would not go out again. When I traced everything back I noticed the coil wrapper on the ball launch was torn and the one lead wire was pulling from the PVC jacket. I rewrapped the coil with some tape and trimmed/reconnected the wire to the lug and so far so good. Now to sort out the rest of the mess.

All lies. After about fifty games the HV line went out again. The ball locked into the left gate, it kicked a new ball up into the shooter lane, the launch button lit, then went out and the entire HV line (coils 1-8) is down again. I disconnected the launch coil since that seemed to clear the issue up last time and no luck. The fuses are all fine. I am guessing this must be a short somewhere. Anyone have any ideas? This is really driving me crazy. Transistors, boards, coils, etc all good. Continuity throughout.

Thanks! When I disconnected the plunger coil this time nothing changed. The line was still out. I really felt like it was this coil. Now I am having my doubts. It's so frustrating.

Fuse is tight. Connectors are all good. By 50V wire are you referring to the positive? If so the coils are all in the 73VDC range. Resistance is within range too.

I really thought it was that plunger coil. Both times it kicked off was after that coil was prepared for activation. I did notice that when I went to desolder the positive lead it gave a spark with the machine off. Not sure if that means anything.

So stumped as this goes in and out.

Thanks! I will go and have a look at that now.

Winner winner. Chicken dinner. (for now). Man, that was driving me nuts. I just gave them a little push and everything is back up and running. Of course I literally just placed a marco order before reading this. Hopefully he'll let me tack on a cable.

Thank you so much. The ribbon cable never occurred to me. I was too fixated on that dang plunger. If you are ever in the New England area I owe you a beer or something.

Thanks, I never would have gotten there without zaza's help. I was too fixated on the coil.

I love the game. I picked it up non working in October and have been slowly going through it. I'm really kicking myself for not ordering the ribbon cable "kit" the last time I had to order a ribbon cable for it (doh). I would have saved myself a ton of headaches plus had a couple of more months of playing under my belt.

Lesson learned. I am picking up an FT in the next fews weeks. Replacing all of the ribbons will be one of my first endeavors.